Thursday, October 30, 2014

I heard Tyrone gulp in the dark. “We should go back to my place
and watch scary movies.”

“Yeah . . . ,” Jimmy began. That’s when we heard the roar of
trucks and shrill war cries in the distance. At the end of the block, a pair of
shadows slunk between crepe myrtle bushes.

Half crouching, half running, we hurried up the sidewalk,
looking for cover.

Randy Tillman’s flaming dragon of a truck sped around the
corner. The two shadows sprang up, shrieking bloody murder, and flung little
white bombs as it passed. The eggs shattered on the side panels, some sailed
through the open windows, and whoever rode inside flung eggs right back,
hollering for revenge. Neither Jimmy, Tyrone, nor myself dared throw eggs at
our archenemies. We ducked behind the trees lining the street and waited for
the truck to disappear. We could hear it roaring for several blocks, so we knew
when we were safe. We tore after the shadows who fled into the night.

Turning onto Ranch
Avenue, we stopped and stared at the math
teacher’s house. Every tree and bush in Mr. Jamison’s front lawn was draped in
toilet paper. “Math sucks,” written in whipped cream, slipped down the large
front windows.

I palmed an egg and lobbed it at the shadows running toward us. In
the light from the streetlamp I watched it strike home. The shadow doubled
over, squealing and grabbing his forehead. His fingers strung with egg
yoke. Jimmy tugged my sleeve and off we ran, stopping every few feet to lob
eggs at our pursuers. God, it was fun. Just like a war film.

Eventually, we joined forces with a gang of eighth graders and a
couple of Freshmen. They weren’t exactly the cool kids, but we weren’t in a
position to be choosy. The major drawback was that Rebecca Duckett lurked on
the outskirts of the group. Though she was a Junior, only the younger kids
would let her tag along. She wore a gray sweatshirt instead of black and
appeared to be everyone’s favorite target. Her matted hair was wet with egg,
and yoke smeared her clothes. She didn’t carry a single egg to defend herself,
but followed us around with a scowl on her face and her arms crossed over her
copious chest. Her presence was a threat to our budding reputations, so we
stayed as far from her as possible without sacrificing our safety inside the
crowd. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Selsie had suffered the same sort
of ostracizing when she was in school and finally offered Rebecca an egg. After
that she stuck to me like a wad of gum on my shoe.

When I rolled my eyes in Jimmy’s direction, he chuckled and
said, “You shoulda known better. Feed the cat and it keeps coming around.”

I was about to suggest we ditch this party, when an old blue
sedan pulled around the block, paused in the street and revved up, challenging
us. “Hey, that’s full of cheerleaders!” Tyrone cried. “Get ‘em!”

Cheerleaders! Elizabeth.
What were the chances? The windows lowered and eggs started flying. Rebecca
ducked behind me like I was her knight in shining armor. I gave her a shove.
“Go pick on somebody else!” I shouted. Then, as I turned back to the battle,
hands full of ammunition, an egg caught me under the left eye. I dropped like a
stone. For a minute I didn’t know which way was up, which was down. I feared my
eye had burst out of the socket, but it was only yoke I scraped off my face.
Groaning, I rolled over on the pavement and for a moment I was sure I was
dreaming: Elizabeth McDuffy leaned over
me, red curls tumbling from under a black stocking cap. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I grunted, sat up, and declared more exuberantly,
“Yeah!”

“Sorry,” she said, squeezed my arm, then jumped back into the
sedan. It sped off, taking my heart with it.

I was so enraptured that I’d forgotten the love potion. Nor did
I hear the growl of Tillman’s dragon approaching. Tires squealed, rubber
burned, and those headlights chased us down. Jimmy dragged me to my feet and we
dived clear. Eggs smashed all around us, so we returned fire. “Brisby!” I heard
as the truck roared past. The driver hit the brakes.

“Shit! Here they come,” shouted Jimmy. We scattered, but Trev
Reynolds was our best running back. I stood no chance. In an instant he had the
hood of my sweatshirt, and my collar jerked tight as a noose. I kicked and
swatted just like those cats under the bridge. Trev dragged me back toward the
truck where Joey Osborn and Randy Tillman had collected a handful of others and
were smashing eggs over their heads. Rebecca Duckett took the abuse in stoic
silence. Jimmy and Tyrone were not among them. I feared they’d abandoned me
until eggs flew from around the nearest oak. Randy and Joey hurried after them.

“Pat ‘em down!” Trev ordered. “Don’t you little girls know it’s
dangerous out here?” Joey confiscated our eggs, while Randy gathered the candy
from Tyrone’s paper bag and added it to their stash in the truck. How many
other kids had they robbed tonight?

Trev searched my pockets. Clucking his tongue, he broke every
egg he found over my head. With slime dripping down my face, I vowed to cheer
for every football team but ours.

“Hey, what’s this?” He held up the love potion.

“No!” I cried, grabbing for it.

He tossed it to Randy. “I think it’s fake blood. We can make
good use of that.”

“Nah, man,” said Randy, holding the bottle up to the streetlamp
and gazing through the ruby liquid. “It’s that syrupy stuff little kids like. I
used to drink this stuff all the time and gross out my sisters.” To prove it,
he popped the cork and swallowed every last drop.

“Oh, no, no, no,” I whimpered.

Tillman started staggering around, groaning, and blinking like
he couldn’t see straight. “What the hell was that stuff, Brisby?”

I threw my arm over my face, and who should Randy Tillman clap
eyes on first but poor Rebecca Duckett. He swept her up and laid one on her.
She shoved him away, but he caught her again in a way that made me think of
Pepé Le Pew.

Trev Reynolds dropped me flat and seized Randy by the arm.
“Don’t make me barf, man. What the hell you doin’?”

Randy just grinned, all doe-eyed, and hugged Rebecca around the
neck. “This is my girl. Hey, don’t look at her like that! I’ll bust your face
in.”

Trev and Joey exchanged a confounded expression, then looked at
me. “What the hell’d you give him?” Trev shouted.

Trev watched his best friend necking on the school skank and
said, “That crazy lady who lives on Mistletoe?”

“She’s not a witch!” I cried.

“Like hell! Look at ‘em! Is that where you got it?”

I shook my head.

“Lyin’ sack of shit. Joey, she’s gotta be the real thing. Go get
the boys.”

“No! You leave her alone!”

Trev pushed me so hard I fell on my backside. He and Joey
dragged Randy into the truck and sped off, leaving rubber for half the block.
Rebecca ran after them, calling, “Wait!”

“Oh, shit,” I kept saying, turning in a panicked circle. “We
have to warn her. C’mon.” I didn’t wait to see if Jimmy and Tyrone followed. I
doubt either could keep up with me, even if they had. Reaching home, I dragged
my bike out of the garage. Dad called from the kitchen, but there was no time. Randy’s
dragon could be there already. I peddled so fast I thought my heart would
burst. The house on Mistletoe Lane
was dark but for one dim light in the living room window. “Selsie!” I called,
running up the walk, then remembered shouting was useless. I banged on the
door, on the window, waved my hands like a maniac. Selsie glanced up from the
novel she was reading and leapt from the old armchair. Did I even look like
myself, with shoe polish on my face and egg soaking my hair? I jabbed my
fingers back toward town, made sure my expression was appropriately desperate,
and finally she unlocked the door.

“Selsie, they’re coming!” I said.

She read my lips but failed to understand my meaning.

“Trev Reynolds and his bullies are coming.” I tried to speak slowly, shape the words clearly, but I
was panting hard, and I was so scared of what they meant to do. “They found the
love potion. They think you’re a witch and they’re coming here!”

“Who?” she asked. “Police?”

“No! Boys from school. Mean boys. You have to leave. Come to my
house.”

She backed away, shaking her head. How long since she’d left her
house? How did she get groceries and cat food if she never left? “You have to!
Please!” Grabbing her wrist, I tried hauling her toward the door, but Selsie
squealed like my hands were made of fire. I’d never seen such a freak out, not
even when my sister got her Barbies taken away from her. It scared me so bad I
released her and damn near started crying.

A roar down the street. The dragon was coming. I ran to the
window, peered through the grime. Randy Tillman’s truck pulled up outside the
gate, and the biggest boys in High School bailed out of the back. Trev climbed
out of the driver’s seat and called toward the house, “We know you’re in there,
witch! We’ve seen what you can do, and we don’t like it. We’ll give you till
the count of three to show yourself, then we start firing.”

Firing? With bullets? Surely not with eggs. Someone clicked a
lighter and lit a cigarette. Trev started the countdown, “One!”

Selsie had stopped freaking out and hovered over my shoulder,
staring out the window. “What are they saying?”

I gave her a nudge toward the kitchen. “Back door. Run. I’ll
stall ‘em.”

“Two!”

Sure I was going to get the crap beaten out of me, I hopped
across the rotten porch and hurried down the sidewalk. “Y’all leave Selsie
alone! She ain’t hurting nobody.”

“Brisby! I knew it,” said Trev.

“Selsie can’t hear you anyway. She’s deaf. Please! Leave her
alone.”

“Grab that little turd and make him shut up.”

One of the team linemen was built just like a gorilla. He jumped
the fence, nabbed me by the sleeve, and pinched me in a headlock till I thought
my brains would burst.

“She’s a witch, deaf or not,” said Trev. “Three!”

The screen door banged, and Selsie emerged. Just like when she ran to scoop up the wounded cat, she ran at the lineman holding me hostage. She
loosed that horrifying, strangled scream of outrage and raked her nails across
his face. The lineman let me go and staggered back into the fence, breaking a
big gap in it with his meaty ass. His teammates dragged him to safety. “Let’s
get out of here!” some cried. Others demanded, “Burn it up, Trev. C’mon!”

“Read my lips, witch,” said Trev, pointing at his mouth. “We
don’t want you here. Saint Claire is our town, and we mean to keep it safe.”

Whether she got the message or not, her fingers started flying
with God knows what kind of curses, obscenities, and warnings.

“What are you gonna do? Cast a spell on us?” Trev taunted,
mocking her with his fingers. “You gonna leave town, or do we have to get
serious?”

I planted myself in front of Selsie, preparing to plead some
more. She clenched my shoulders and together we started backing for the house.

“Light it up, Curtis,” Trev ordered.

The idiot with the lighter set fire to a strip of fabric tucked
into the mouth of a beer bottle. Trev seized it and hurled it like a football.
The bottle sailed high, snagged in one of the arborvitaes, dropped straight
down and burst under the porch. Fire exploded. The stink of burning gasoline
wafted past on the wind.

“Stop!” I shouted. With her mouth open in silent horror, Selsie
watched the flame lick up the porch railing.

Three more bottles sailed across the yard. One busted on the
roof. Another through the second story window. The last bounced off the
arborvitae and set flame to the jungle of weeds in the front lawn.

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch!” The chant filled the night as
the fire spread. But the brave jocks didn’t dare cross the fence to actually lay hands on Selsie. Burning her house satisfied them just fine.

Selsie turned me, shook me by the shoulders. “Cat!” she cried.
“Cat!”

“They’ll run out,” I said, but the fire had nearly engulfed the
house already. All those stacks of books and the old dry wood provided an ample
feast.

“Cat!” she screamed and ran for the house.

“No, Selsie!” I chased her as far as the porch. She hopscotched
over the flames and rotten planks and disappeared inside.

The frenzied chant withered; the jocks watched the house just as
I did, waiting. Afraid. I could see it their faces. They realized the weight of
what they’d done. “Do something!” I shouted. “Call somebody!”

Randy Tillman started his truck. The lineman with the scratched
face bellowed, “I’m getting outta here!” Some fled on foot. Some vaulted into
the bed of the truck just before it sped off. Trev Reynolds missed his chance,
so did three others. They cursed Randy for leaving them behind. When sirens
wailed in the distance, they took off, disappearing down one street or another.
I ran, too, afraid the cops would pin the fire on me. In the empty, overgrown
lot across the street, I collapsed behind a boxwood, crying, and watched Saint
Claire’s only fire engine go to work. The bright stream of water seemed to turn
to steam before it hit the house. Police Chief Wade arrived amid flashing lights and
screaming siren. I heard him tell the fire chief, “ ‘Bout time that old place
gave up the ghost.”

“How long’s it been empty?” asked the chief.

“I don’t think it was. Crazy woman lived there.”

“Damn. Nobody could survive that inferno. When it’s out, we’ll
look for bodies.”

They found bodies, all right. Lots of them. Eight cats, in fact,
charred to the bone. But they never found Selsie. I like to think she snatched
her black cat and her broom on the way out the back door and flew through the
night, all the way to Dallas,
where she lives to this day in her sister’s posh apartment. But who’s to say?
Strange, lonely creature like that might well have turned into a beam of
moonlight and escaped all our hatred and suspicion, and so much the better for
her.

The love potion wore off eventually, but only after Randy and
Rebecca had eloped. She came home, brokenhearted and crying, a few weeks later,
and Randy lost his status as “one of the good ol’ boys,” not because he’d
married Rebecca, but because he kicked her out. Nobody but Jimmy Harden and me
believed Randy’s story about being ensorcelled, and we never said a word. So
maybe there’s a little justice to be found in Saint Claire, after all.

Five years later, I left for college in St. Louis without once landing a date with
Elizabeth McDuffy. By then, she was married anyway and running a beauty shop on
Main Street.
Me? I had to get out. Saint Claire had become stifling, as most small towns do
for most boys. I have traveled half the country, England and France, but
everywhere I go, there is something to remind me of home, and of Selsie. I
still get cravings for peanut butter cookies, but none equal hers. I have
followed countless cats, hoping they would lead me to her. And the site of
trick-or-treaters and the clatter of dry leaves along the sidewalk bring her to
mind every October. So who knows? Maybe Jimmy was right. Maybe Selsie
ensorcelled me, too. No. Enchanted, and the spell has yet to diminish.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

I don't know why I like Halloween best. I guess it has something to do with the fantasy involved in the costumes and the fun found in the dark lore surrounding this time of the year.

Some people go all out for Christmas, but I seem to put out extra effort for Halloween. So in addition to posting "The Witch of Mistletoe Lane" here at Wordweaver, I also rushed around to prepare a ghost story for publication.

Swans of Westermere is available at Amazon this weekend for free download. It will also be free on October 30 and 31. It's a short, spine-tingly sort of read, perfect for getting into the spirit of the season without the gore-fest or terror of pure horror. I don't write horror, but I do love the mystery in a good ghost story, so it's the latter I try to capture in Swans. I give a little more information about the story itself in this post.

The print version will become available as soon as I can approve my final proof. And of course, I prefer the print version. It's so much more attractive than the generic-looking digital version.

Anyway, if you're looking for a quick read for Halloween, consider giving Swans a shot.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Who in their right mind serves kids bowls of brown beans with
cardboard that looks like cornbread? There was also something shaped like a
pumpkin that I think was supposed to be a sugar cookie dyed orange, but after
Selsie’s peanut butter masterpieces, I turned up my nose and gave it to Tyrone.
We had thirty minutes to scarf down the rest before the High Schoolers were
released for lunch and we had to return to class, but I was so nervous I could
hardly eat. All Adam, Tyrone, and Jimmy could talk about were plans for
Halloween. Tyrone still wanted to go trick-or-treating. Adam was never allowed
to go because his parents “didn’t believe in it.” Well, hell, who did? His
friends always slipped him bags of candy, however, and they didn’t seem to mind
that.

The bell rang. High Schoolers began flooding the halls and
lining up to claim their share of the sludge. Elizabeth McDuffy clustered near
the front of the line with some other cheerleaders. Soon, she would be all
mine. I double-checked my jacket pocket, felt the bulge of the glass bottle and
tried not to look sneaky. Suave, gotta be suave. The older kids began filling
up the tables, and Jimmy elbowed me. “C’mon, we gotta get.”

I stalled as long as I could, gathering my tray, even sweeping
crumbs off the table, which was against school etiquette. Finally, Elizabeth came through the
line and, thank Heaven, she sat at the end of a table. I dumped my tray in the trash bin that even flies won't touch, dug
the bottle from my pocket and readied my thumb to pop the cork. Only trick was,
how to be on hand until she drank the tea and looked at me? How to keep her
from looking at anyone else first? Nothing for it, I had try. Thinking “James
Bond,” I meandered back through the tables, trigger finger ready.

A foot shot out from under a table, hooked my ankle, and before
I knew it, I was sprawled on the cafeteria floor, face planted in shoe-smudged
beans.

Laughter roared. “Going for crumbs, Brisby?” Trev Reynolds
asked, drawing his foot back into hiding. Across the table, Randy Tillman flicked
bits of cornbread at me.

The bottle! Where was the bottle? I snatched it up from under
the next table and ran to the locker room where my mates dug books and pens from
mini disaster areas. Tyrone’s eyebrows jumped. “Man, looks like you saw the
janitor’s ghost.”

"What the hell's on your face?" ask Adam. "The ghost shit on you too?"

I wiped a smear of beans off my cheek, more off my elbows.

Jimmy cast me an I-told-you-so look that he’d inherited from his
mother. “Them cookies making you hallucinate now?”

By the end of the day, I had bounced back. I’d have plenty of
chances to try again. Four years’ worth, in fact, before Elizabeth graduated and fled Saint Claire
forever.

#

Halloween arrived at last. As soon as the sun went down, the
doorbell started ringing. Dad handed out candy, while Mom and Melissa prepared
to join the painted throngs haunting the sidewalks. Of course, my little sister
dressed up as a Barbie doll. The mermaid version of Barbie. I started to tell
her that she looked royally dumb with her feet sticking out of her pink
fishtail, but Dad thumped me upside the head and kissed his
Barbie-mermaid-princess on her rouged cheek and sent her off with a wave. “You
look great, honey. Y’all be back in an hour, hear?”

While he waited for the doorbell, he watched the early evening
news, and I purloined Mom’s carton of eggs from the fridge and slipped out the
door. Under the vampire cloak I wore last year, I was decked out in black.
Jimmy and Tyrone had agreed to meet me at the Elementary playground. They were
hanging out under an oak tree when I got there. We ditched our costumes and
Jimmy passed around the black shoe polish. Smearing it all over his face, he
said, “We’re gonna get creamed.” At least tonight he sounded excited about it.
Tyrone had brought a paper bag full of egg cartons. His mom raised chickens and
sold the eggs to nearly everybody in town. “If she knew I took these,” he said,
handing us each a carton, “she’d skin me.”

“It’s just once a year, Ty,” I said, tucking eggs into the
pockets of my sweat suit alongside the love potion. I never knew when I’d run
into Elizabeth
and get the chance to slip it to her. Maybe tonight. Please, God, make it be tonight.

In truth, we betrayed our
inexperience by showing up with our eggs before it was fully dark. In the
meantime, we rang a few doorbells for lack of anything better to do, and while
I munched a Tootsie pop (letting the stick hang out of my mouth like it was a
cigarette), I began to notice that the number of trick-or-treaters was dwindling.
The moon glowed bright above the oak trees; lights on front porches started
flicking out. The time had come.

(concluded next week in Part 5)

"The Witch of Mistletoe Lane" copyright 2011 by Court Ellyn. No part of the story may be reproduced without written permission of the author.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Step by pained step I approached the gate. It banged in the
north wind. The sign announced, “The Witch is In.” Brown leaves rattled in the
branches of an old oak, and a calico cat slunk away through the jungle of
weeds.

My hand managed to reach out and still the swinging gate, but
for the life of me, my feet refused to enter the avenue between the leering
jack o’ lanterns. The heavy front door opened, and the witch stood behind the
screen, hands flashing. My brain went blank, and I forgot the signs I had
practiced. Finally, she made a swatting motion, as if I were a fly, bidding me
get away from her gate. In truth, I felt about as small.

Closing my eyes, I recalled the picture on the page that had
mattered most, then made a fist and drew a circle over my heart: sorry. With my
thumb and forefinger I made like I was preening a whisker on my face: cat.

The witch stopped flapping at me, and her mouth opened a little
in surprise. It was working! I shaped the letters of my name: C-O-L-T-O-N.

Slowly, as if she expected me to start throwing tomatoes, she
stuck her hand around the screen door and spelled S-E-L-S-I-E. When I didn’t
start laughing or chucking rocks, she gave me the flat palm that means “wait”
in every language. She disappeared inside the house for a good long while, then
came back carrying a brown paper bag, the kind Mom packed our lunches in when
we could’t stand the cafeteria food a day longer. Selsie sidled up the
sidewalk, overweight and smelling warm and musty and barely able to look me in
the eye. She might have been as old as my mother. Hands that badly needed
lotion extended the bag over the gate. I stared at it, the old scolding racing
through my head: Never accept candy from strangers! But it was almost
Halloween, the only time we were allowed to break that rule. And how old was I
anyway? I took the bag, and Selsie retreated, wild hair blowing like a tumbleweed
in the wind. I waited till I’d ridden back to the intersection before I peeked
inside the bag. I don’t know what I was expecting, fried baby fingers or
blood-colored lollipops, but the sight of those enormous peanut butter cookies
still warm from the oven made my mouth water.

I peddled fast as I could to Jimmy’s house, which was only two
doors down from mine. He came running when I called and listened to my tale
with the same expression of astonishment as the toads who didn’t see the
bicycle wheel coming. “She seemed scared of me, but nice. She gimme this.” I
held up the paper bag.

“What is it?” Jimmy edged away, expecting something to spring
out and latch onto his face.

“Cookies. You want one?” I offered one to him. They were cooling
off already.

“No way, man.” He started backing up the wheelchair ramp. “They
might turn you into a frog or a mouse, and her cats will eat you. Look, my
dad’s calling. I got homework to do. Talk to you later.”

Confounded, I walked the rest of the way home, carried the paper
bag up to my room and sat on my bed, staring at the cookies. Could Jimmy be
right? Mustering my courage, I nibbled an edge. And sighed. Crunchy but
melt-in-your-mouth good. I waited for the change to happen. No warts. No
croaking. I took a bigger bite. Had to be the best cookie I ever ate. By the
time I finished the first one, an old bedtime story returned to haunt me. A
little boy named Tom ate a magical jelly bean, but it wasn’t until the next
morning that he woke up and found he’d shrunk to the size of a cockroach. He
spent the next several pages battling dust mites under his bed before the magic
wore off and he returned to normal. Maybe I’d wake up the same way, or maybe I
wouldn’t wake up at all. I ate every cookie Selsie gave me, telling myself what
a sweet death it would be.

All I got was a stomach ache and a scolding from mom and dad
when I didn’t eat my supper. They banished me to my room for the rest of the
evening. Those kinds of silent martyrdoms were unavoidable at times, but well
worth the trouble.

#

The whole town turned out to watch the Halloween parade. Saint
Claire was fond of parades. Still is, I guess. Besides the Ag shows and
watermelon festival, parades were the only showy spectacle we had to entertain
ourselves. Of course, the conservatives of Saint Claire, who amounted to
ninety-nine percent of the town, deemed it sacrilegious to hold a parade in
honor of a pagan holiday, so we had to call it the Oktoberfest parade, though
only a handful of German descendants lived among us. Farmers filled pickup
trucks with pumpkins and hay bales, while each class and every church festooned
cars with balloons, ribbon, and shoe polish, our version of floats. The school
band, two dozen inept musicians, led the thing down Main Street. Alongside the tuba and bass
drum, Rebecca Duckett flipped a baton, or tried to. She dropped it three times
between the drug store and Al’s mechanic shop. Jimmy made a point of laughing
and shaking his head as she passed. Even we Junior High losers ranked higher
than miserable, fat Rebecca Duckett. If the school building was full of wolf
cubs, she was the Omega. I listened to Jimmy’s laughter, thought of Selsie, and
felt sorry for Rebecca. She marched valiantly past, off-rhythm, tripped on her
own feet, and nearly clubbed Mrs. Demitri to death. I cringed, unable to watch
any longer.

The Homecoming Queen approached, riding loftily in a throne that
was bolted to a jangling flatbed trailer. The team captain, who’d gotten to
kiss her, stood beside her looking cross and bored. The queen sparkled in her
cheap tiara, waved, and tossed handfuls of candy. The elementary kids scrambled
in the gutters for broken lollipops and squished Tootsie Rolls, but Jimmy and I
crossed our arms and stood our ground. We were in Junior High now and far too
dignified to fight for candy off the street.

The rest of the football team came next, sitting around the edge
of a second trailer. They looked tough in their jerseys and swung their legs
while they watched the cheerleaders doing back flips to cheers from the crowd.
Elizabeth McDuffy flipped past, a flash of red hair and long legs, and Jimmy nudged
me, ruining my euphoria.

The Shriners took up the rear, old men in little clown cars and coffee-can
hats. Once they puttered past, the parade was over. It had taken all of ten
minutes of my life, but it was ten minutes I could never get back. The only
positive to be found was that school let out for the event, and now we were
free to go home. It was two days till Halloween. Jimmy and I had costumes to
finalize.

“I wanna go as the Headless Horseman,” he said, pondering how to
turn a black bed sheet into something convincing.

I milled through the box of costume parts on his bedroom floor.
“You don’t got a horse. So you’d be the Headless-Horseless Horseman.”

He chucked a pillow at me and swung a foot. I rolled out of
range, laughing to bust a seam. “It’s not my fault it’s stupid.”

“It ain’t!” He sagged on the edge of his bed. “What do you think
I should be?”

“Egging’s for High Schoolers only. We’ll get smeared. And if
Trev and Randy catch us—”

“Who was so brave the other day under the bridge, Scaredy Cat?
Hey, you know what we should do?”

“No more cat huntin’, man.”

“No, no. Go see if Selsie has anymore of them cookies. I been
thinking about ‘em all day.”

“Who the hell is Selsie?”

“The witch, genius. Remember?”

“Aw, drop it, man. You’re never gonna get me back there.”

“I’m not a toad, am I? They were just cookies, damn it. C’mon!
Don’t make me double dare you.”

Jimmy groaned and slunk after me. “If I end up in the hospital,
it’s all your fault.” He fell farther and farther behind on his bike. I waited
for him at the intersection of Seventh and Mistletoe. When he caught up, I
showed him how to spell his name in signs. He didn’t even try. “Aw, this is dumb,”
he whined. “She’s gonna eat us.”

That was the last straw. “Superstitious baby! Come or not, I
don’t care.” Pumping the peddles, I left Jimmy in the dust. He had to hurry to
catch up. We propped our bikes against the sagging picket fence and stood
outside the gate, waiting. A wisp of curtain moved on the second story. Shortly
after, the front door cracked open. At first, only her white hand appeared. I
waved. The rest of Selsie emerged, but she didn’t look happy that I’d brought
someone. I signed his name, J-I-M-M-Y.

She gave him the evil eye and slowly spelled W-I-N-D-O-W. Shit!
She’d seen him throw that rock after all, and remembered him after all these
years.

“Make a fist!” I ordered and, grabbing Jimmy’s elbow, tried to
make the sign for “sorry” on his chest.

He shook me off. “What the hell?”

I had to apologize for him and drew the circle over my own
heart. Selsie seemed reluctant to accept it, but she didn’t shut the door in
our faces either. I didn’t know the sign for “cookies” but I could spell it
with my fingers. After some deliberation, she nodded and waved us to come in
the gate.

“It’s a trap, man,” said Jimmy.

“Are you kidding?”

“I told you, I still think she’s a witch.”

“Witches can’t be nice and give a kid some more cookies?”

“They charmed you, that’s what they did, and here we are,
getting sucked in. Go in if you want to, but I’m waiting out here. Just in case
you don’t come back.”

I hurried up the sidewalk to show Jimmy how stupid he was, and
those leering jack ‘o lanterns were just faded bits of plastic. The front porch
was rotting through, and the stink of cat piss nearly choked me, but I made it
in the front door. The living room of that old house was cluttered, yet
orderly. Stacks of frayed paperback books lined a trail that led to the
kitchen, where a big cast iron pot bubbled on the stove. Bundles of herbs and
dried flowers hung from the ceiling, and a gray-striped cat leapt off the small
dining table and disappeared into another room. The whole place screamed
“witch” at me. There was even one of those old-fashioned brooms propped in the
corner by the back door. Funny to think of Selsie zooming over our rooftops
under the crescent moon while we slept. Funny. And not so funny. She picked up
a plate off the counter and let me choose a cookie. They weren’t as fresh as
the other day, but they were still ambrosia.

Ah, hell, what was the sign for “thank you”? I couldn’t
remember, so I just said it loud as I could. Selsie watched my mouth intently.
To my surprise she spoke aloud: “Welcome.” The word didn’t sound quite right,
and the position of her tongue was exaggerated, but I understood her just fine.
She looked ragged and distrustful, eyes darting about the kitchen, like she was
trying to assess it from my perspective, then she started wiping down the
countertops. Next time she glanced my direction I made the sign for “cat.” She
watched my mouth. “All right?” I asked.

She bid me wait and from another room brought a cat carrier. The
great black beast was curled up inside with a white bandage wrapped around his
hind leg. “Okay,” Selsie said. Relieved, I stuck my finger through the grate to
pet the beast, but his ears laid back and he hissed like a demon. I jumped a
foot back, and Selsie added, “Remember you.”

I felt like a shithead for following Trev Reynolds’ orders.
Selsie sat the cat carrier down and ran to stir whatever bubbled in her stew
pot. Double, double, toil and trouble,
I thought while I meandered back into the living room, nibbling my cookie. The
stacks of books looked like towers of a miniature world. Romance novels, that’s
what the scary witch spent her time reading, not grimoires of black magic or
satanic bibles. The one bookshelf had no books on it, only pictures in frames.
A bolt of fear shot through my guts, because in one, Selsie stood next to a woman
that could have been her twin; less prominent a nose, sleeker hair, sharp suit.
Was this the sister she murdered?

Glancing over my shoulder, I found Selsie glowering at the
picture. The front door was only feet away. I could make it to safety if I sprinted,
so I had to ask. “Cat,” I signed and pointed at the photograph, made a motion
of eating. Selsie’s untrimmed eyebrows pinched.

“Sibyl eat cats?” she asked.

Sibyl, was it? “No,” I said slowly. “Cats eat Sibyl?”

Selsie laughed the laughter of those who have never heard
laughter before. “No!” she said, then spelled D-A-L-L-A-S.

“Your sister lives in Dallas?”

She nodded, still laughing. “Sibyl hates cats. I keep them. She
moves to Dallas.”

I was almost disappointed. No skeleton in the basement. No great
murder mystery to solve. “I wish my sister would move to Dallas.” Selsie leaned so she could see my
mouth better. “My sister!” I enunciated more clearly. “She’s a pain. She
mothers me and bosses me around, even though she’s three years younger than me.
And all she thinks about are shoes and Barbie dolls. It’s disgusting.”

I don’t think Selsie caught it all, but she smiled and asked,
“You don’t got a girl?”

I thought of Elizabeth McDuffy and downed the rest of that
cookie like I’d seen my dad throw back a shot of bourbon. “Well …,” I began.
“She’s a Freshman. I’m just a seventh grader. She don’t gimme the time of day.
But she said I was cute once. That was a long time ago, though, when I was
eight or something. Her being older ain’t bad, is it?”

Selsie debated a long time, gnawing her lower lip. At last she
sighed and told me to stay put. I heard her clattering around in the kitchen
cabinets, drag out a step stool, and go fishing for something hard to reach.
When she came back, she handed me a small glass bottle with a bulbous bottom
and a narrow neck that was stopped with a cork and wax, the old-old-fashioned
way. Inside was a liquid as red as lipstick and roses and Valentine’s Day. On
the side in worn gold letters, it said “Lov- -otion.”

Selsie scratched at her nape like she was nervous or shy about
giving it to me. “Your girl drink it. See you.” She shrugged to indicate the
rest.

Ah, the stacks of romance novels, the empty house, and a dusty
old love potion that had been handled so much that the label had worn off.

I touched her arm. “Thanks, Selsie.”

Jimmy was shivering outside the gate. “I was just about to go
for the cops.”

“Good cookies, man. You missed it.”

“You didn’t bring me one? Jackass.”

We hopped on our bikes and raced home, me with a secret tucked
in my pocket. It was the first I’d ever kept from Jimmy Harden. But I couldn’t
bring myself to tell him that he was right about Selsie. For Selsie’s sake.

I resolved to somehow slip
the love potion into Elizabeth’s
tea the next day in the cafeteria. That would be a feat that even Hercules
would boast about.

(continued next week in Part 4)

"The Witch of Mistletoe Lane" copyright 2011 by Court Ellyn. No part of the story may be reproduced without written permission of the author.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Characters real and imaginary come vividly to life in this whimsical triple play of intertwined plots, in which a skeptical H. G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence.

—Amazon

Review:

This spring I was on a desperate hunt for new authors to explore and happened upon what looked like a Steampunk novel sitting on the literary fiction shelves. “What’s that doing here?” I asked and picked up a copy to examine (yes, I judged a book by its cover, and I’m glad I did). The ensuing adventure was more than I expected.

Several elements of this novel struck me as noteworthy. That “whimsical triple play of intertwined plots” is the first. One of the main reasons I have not attempted to write a time travel story is the complex plotting that must surely be involved. The Map of Time provides an intimidating example of exactly that.

Part 1 centers on Andrew Harrington, a wealthy young man who has fallen in love with a prostitute from Whitechapel. As the names of characters and setting were gradually revealed, I began to cringe. History recap: Victorian England + prostitute + Whitechapel = Jack the Ripper. “Oh, Lord,” I groaned, anticipating what must surely be coming, “is this a Jack the Ripper story?” I hadn’t bargained for this. I was expecting steam engines and, well, time travel, not a plot involving the most notorious serial killer of all time. Indeed, Andrew Harrington turns to H.G. Wells for help, hoping to travel back in time to save his beloved from the Ripper’s blades.

Part 2, fortunately, moves away from the gore, and brings us to Claire Haggerty, a proper lady who is wholly disgusted with her life and the stifling mores of Victorian society. When she hears of an opportunity to travel to the year 2000, she eagerly jumps on board. In the future, she finds the man of her dreams. But can she keep him without irreparably damaging the fabric of time? Only the author of The Time Machine, who must be an expert on the subject of the time continuum, can help the lovers find a solution.

In Part 3 … well, I won’t give spoilers. Suffice to say that in this gripping conclusion, H.G. Wells must make the most difficult decision imaginable. It involves a letter from his future self, three famous novelists, and a heat ray gun. Which thread in the time continuum will Wells choose? Or is choice ultimately irrelevant?

That brings us to the second aspect of the novel that impressed me: the science of time travel. This is another reason I haven’t attempted to write a time travel story. The possible loops in time and splits in universes are just too big for my brain to fully comprehend. Some of Palma’s explanations and theories I just had to swallow because puzzling them out in my head threatened to make me dizzy. There are far too many fans of time travel for Palma to explore the theories and problems in any way he chooses. Had Palma done so, those fans and theorists would be able to call him out. Given to my own limited education on the subject, there’s nothing to criticize him for, and therefore, the story and its conclusions remain believable.

The third noteworthy aspect might have made an impression on me merely because I write. Through his rendering of H.G. Wells, Palma beautifully expresses insights into a writer’s life and psyche:

“…no other pleasure Wells could think of gave him a greater sense of well-being than when he added the final full stop to a novel. This culminating act always filled him with a sense of giddy satisfaction born of the certainty that nothing he could achieve in life could fulfill him more than writing a novel, no matter how tedious, difficult, and thankless he found the task, for Wells was one of those writers who detest writing but love ‘having written.’ …

"… for Wells the act of writing was much like a struggle, a bloodthirsty battle with an idea that refuses to be seized.” (p. 534)

And:

“He was back at the point of departure, at the place that filled writers with dread and excitement, for this was where they must decide which new story to tackle… At that moment, before reverently committing the first word to paper, he could write anything he wanted, and this fired his blood with a powerful sense of freedom, as wonderful as it was fleeting, for he knew it would vanish the moment he chose one story and sacrificed all the others.” (p. 676)

“That’s it, exactly!” I kept saying. Never before have I read explanations of what it’s like to be a writer in such clear, powerful language.

The only drawback I was able to pinpoint in the novel was that the ending seemed a bit drawn-out. I can’t go into detail without spoiling things, but suffice to say that I understand the reason that the mundane must follow the extraordinary, and so there lies the ending’s redemption.

Conclusion:

People have been fascinated with the idea of time travel ever since it was explored in Wells’ novel over a century ago. Palma takes what has since become a common science fiction theme back to its literary source and winds a whole new adventure around it, turning H.G Wells himself into an unlikely hero. More, the novel is exquisitely translated from the Spanish. My standards of competent language are quite high, and this novel does not disappoint on that count either. Nick Caistor, the translator, and presumably Palma himself manage to present the story in language as it would have been written at the turn of the 19th Century.

And so, The Map of Time impresses me on many different levels. I recommend the book to anyone interested in time travel, adventure, and fine writing.

The Map of Time, Book 1 of Victorian Trilogy (Trilogia Victoriana) by Felix J. Palma is published by Algaida Spain as El Mapa del Tiempo, 2009. English translation published by Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

We didn’t stop running till we reached the school yard. The
swings and teeter-totters for the elementary kids looked like the most
benevolent place in the universe. Jimmy collapsed on the merry-go-round and
sobbed. “I’m doomed. I didn’t know it was her cat. Ah, God, I didn’t know.”

Jimmy ignored him. “Colton,
you know. You saw what happened, and now my dad’s in a wheelchair, and it’s my
fault. Ah, God!”

I couldn’t argue. I just stared at the deep wallow that hundreds
of feet had dug around the merry-go-round and listened to him sob.

“My mom’ll be next. She’ll die of the plague or something and
I’ll have to go live with grandpa. I hate cows!”

“What’s he talking about, Colt?” asked Adam, looking sicker than
ever. I told him and Ty about the rock Jimmy threw all those years ago.

“I never had my tonsils out,” cried Jimmy. “I don’t want to go
back to the hospital. The food’s terrible and those nurses treat you like meat,
then they hand you a balloon like everything’s gonna be okay, but it’s not. I’m
doomed.”

I sighed. “Well, this time we’re all doomed together. Maybe the
curse will just stick to us and not bother our families. We can die heroes.”

Adam finally caught on. “Cursed?
Ah, shit, man, we’re dead.”

“You think she’ll eat us?” asked Tyrone. “My Auntie Tisha said
the witch had a sister who used to live with her. But they fought and the witch
poisoned her and fed her to them cats.”

“Nobody’s gonna eat us, Ty,” I said, though my tone lacked
conviction. “Y’all come sleep over at my house tonight. We’ll go to church in
the morning and pray that the curse don’t take hold.”

“What about Trev Reynolds and the others?” Tyrone asked. “We
gotta bring ‘em a cat, or they’ll kill us before any curse will.”

I had to puzzle that one out. “We’ll sleep with the slingshots.”

“We only got two!” cried Adam.

“I got a BB gun,” said Ty.

“Okay, go get it, and be at my place by dark.” I’d rarely felt
so exhilarated. All we needed was an Ennio Morricone soundtrack playing in the
background. On top of dodging bullies and waiting for the shootout, we’d been
cursed to boot. Life couldn’t get more adventurous in Saint Claire.

#

We sat in a solemn row on the front pew of the CalvaryBaptistChurch and prayed like we
had never prayed before. The preacher kept eyeing us during the sermon,
suspicious of our sudden devoutness, but for once we didn’t have any pranks in
mind. In fact, we were a bit delirious. None of us had slept too well. Near midnight, Adam swore he heard Randy’s truck
growling past the house, and the streetlight shone through the oak tree on our
front lawn, casting a shadow across my wall that at 2 a.m. looked just like the witch’s wild black
hair.

After church, the four of us shook hands. “Well,” I said, “I
hope to see y’all on Monday. If I don’t, well, no crying at my funeral. Hear?”

“Gotcha, man,” said Jimmy. “Everybody stay low. Keep in touch.”

We parted ways. I can’t explain the sorrow I felt when I
considered that I might never see those guys again. Peering in the rearview
mirror, Dad saw me moping and asked, “Guilty conscience, kiddo?”

“Nah, I just don’t feel too good.” At first I thought it was
just a lie, to get out of explaining the curse, but the more I thought about
it, the more I really did feel queasy. The certainty struck me that a tumor was
growing in my guts. I was sure it was already the size of a baseball.

My little sister scooted as far from me as the car door allowed.
“Don’t you puke on me, Colton Brisby!” Melissa crossed her index fingers to
ward off the evil of invisible germs.

“Ain’t gonna puke on nobody, big baby.”

Mom turned around in the passenger seat and frowned. “I’ll pick
up some Pepto when I go in for the milk.”

“No, Mom, I’m fine.” How to explain that I was dying and Pepto
Bismal wouldn’t help? We pulled into the lot of the grocery store, and Dad kept
the car running while Mom and Melissa went in. I squirmed in the backseat for a
minute before deciding that sitting still thinking about it was a bad idea. I
hurried after Mom and offered to push the cart. She looked at me like I’d lost
my mind, then smiled and humored my moment of selflessness. She put a bottle of
Pepto in with the milk, the box of Rice o’ Roni, and several bags of Halloween
candy. When she hurried ahead, I discreetly put the Pepto back on the shelf and
pressed at the achy place in my stomach where the tumor was sucking the life
out of me.

At the checkout counter, ol’ Mrs. Beals dropped our stuff into
plastic bags while she ooh’d and aw’d over how big Melissa and I had gotten.
Melissa rolled her eyes, because Mrs. Beals told us that every Sunday. I thanked
Mrs. Beals, polite as I could, hoping to earn God’s favor. Then at the next
counter, I glimpsed a flutter of fingers that snagged my attention like a grub
on a hook. A woman flashed some hand signs just like the witch. A little girl who
could only be her daughter, flashed more signs in reply.

Like a bolt a out of the blue, I realized. “She’s deaf!”

The woman across the way straightened and looked at me as though
I’d given her the finger, then wrapped a protective arm around her daughter. My
own mother pinched my arm, like she did when I misbehaved in church. “Shh,
what’s wrong with you? For goodness’ sake.”

My face burned, and I slouched out of the grocery store. Climbing
into the car beside me, Melissa said, “That’s Erin.
She’s new in my class this year. She’s mostly in special ed though. Some of the
boys made fun of her at first, but they got sent to the principal’s office. I
think she’s real nice.”

I’d rarely felt more like a complete idiot. Such was our terror
that none of us had recognized the obvious. The witch wasn’t cursing us. She
was probably cussing us out in sign language. She probably wasn’t a witch at
all, and there we were running scared from a deaf woman. Brave cat hunters,
indeed. Damn.

Jimmy crossed his arms and looked disappointed. “Deaf or not, I
still think she’s a witch. My dad’s still in a wheelchair.”

“He fell off a roof, Jimmy,” I said. “That could happen to
anybody. And lots of people have their appendixes taken out. It don’t mean she
cursed you.”

“Like hell it don’t.” Sulking, he went in to class.

Adam came to attention and fled in after him. A crowd of High
Schoolers approached. Books that weighed a ton looked small under their arms.
In their midst, Trev Reynolds pointed at Tyrone and me, and those cool snake
eyes promised retribution for disobeying his order about the cat.

A crowd of cheerleaders tagged along behind, giggling and
fussing with their makeup. Elizabeth McDuffy fluffed her red hair and looked
just like a model in a Pantene commercial. I swear her green eyes met mine, and
I felt ten feet tall. I couldn’t act scared in front of her. Instead, I stuck
out my chin and pointed right back at Trev Reynolds. He threw back his head and
laughed. “I’m gonna smear you into the pavement, Brisby. You and all your
little girlfriends.”

Tyrone grabbed my finger and hauled me into algebra.

For third period, Mrs. Demitri took her English class to the
library, where we had to choose something to read for the end-of-semester book
report. I hated book reports more than long division. I even hated them more
than the cafeteria food, which is saying a lot. We browsed through the achingly
dull novels, groaning and fighting the urge to flee the building. I curled my
lip at titles like The Good Earth and
To Kill a Mockingbird and almost
settled on Shane, because my dad
liked the old Alan Ladd movie, but a little farther along, the word “witch”
caught my attention. I slipped the book off the shelf and gave it a suspicious
look-over, expecting to find a trick lurking inside. The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Hmm … award-winner, skinny, and look
at that! The author’s name was Elizabeth.
Couldn’t go wrong with that. While the librarian stamped the date on the inside
for me, I began to regret my choice. I didn’t need a reminder of the witch. My
tumor might be gone, and my family was surely safe, but I remembered the way
that black cat hobbled home, and the look on the witch’s face as she scooped him
up. I felt sick now for a whole new reason.

“We have to go back and apologize, guys.” We gathered around one
of the tables whose scarred plastic chairs were always too small.

“Apologize? For what?” asked Tyrone.

“The witch?” asked Jimmy. “Are you crazy?”

“No way!” Adam said. “I’m never going back there.”

“Shhh!” hissed Mrs. Demitri. I sat back in the tiny chair and
sulked. I didn’t want to go to the witch’s house by myself, but it seemed I had
no choice. Searching the shelves in the reference section, I found a book on
sign language. With the few minutes left of third period, I practiced making
the letters and a few other signs. All the while, I knew I was putting my life
at risk. The witch was said to have fed her own sister to her cats, after all.
After what we did, she might decide to turn me into Meow Mix next.

For the rest of the day I practiced the signs under my desk,
though I forgot half the letters by the time the bell rang. After fetching
Melissa from the front of the Elementary building, I hurried home. Melissa got
mad at me for leaving her half a block behind, but I didn’t listen. I blew
through the house at top speed.

“Where you going?” Mom called after me.

“I’m s’posed to meet the guys. At the cow pond.”

“Do your homework first!”

“Ain’t got any.”

“Since when?”

I was out the door and on
my bike before she could stop me. The temperature had dropped throughout the
day, and the sky was a gloomy gray. My fingers were numb by the time I reached Mistletoe Lane. Swinging
off my bike at the end of the street, I stared at the horror of a house as if inside death was waiting for me.

(continued next week in Part 3)

"The Witch of Mistletoe Lane" copyright 2011 by Court Ellyn. No part of the story may be reproduced without written permission of the author.